"You wouldn"t dare, Dorothy, you wouldn"t dare!" he cried, imploringly. "They are not to blame. I am the guilty one. They are not--"
"One way or the other, Phil!" she cried, firmly. "It is safety for all or disgrace for all. Now, will you go to Brussels?"
"But, my heavens, how can you explain to the world?" he cried, in deepest distress.
"I have thought of all that. Providence gave me the solution," she said, her face beaming with the joy of victory.
"Not even Providence can supply an explanation," he groaned.
"You forget Courant, the dead man. He cannot deny the charge if I conclude to accuse him of the crime. He is the solution!"
x.x.x. LOVE IS BLIND
"But Ugo can disprove it," he said, after a moment"s thought.
"Only by confessing his own duplicity," she said, tranquilly.
"You will not marry him, Dorothy?"
She looked him full in the eyes, and no word could have answered plainer than the disdain which swept across her lovely face.
"What do you think of me, Phil?" she asked, in hurt tones, and he answered with his eyes because he could not trust his voice.
The longing to throw her arms about the man whose burning eyes had set her heart afire was almost uncontrollable; the hope that he would throw off restraint and cry out his love, drove her timidly into silent expectancy. His whole soul surged to his lips and eyes, but he fought back the words that would have made them both so happy. He knew she loved him; the faintest whisper from him would cause her lips to breathe the pa.s.sion her eyes revealed. And yet he was strong enough to bide his time.
How long this exquisite communion of thoughts lasted neither knew nor cared. Through the leafy wood they drove, in utter silence, both understanding, both revealing, both waiting. He dared not look at the glorious, love-lit face, he dared not speak to her, he dared not tempt the heart that might betray his head. It was he who at last broke that joyous calm, and his voice was husky with suppressed emotion.
"You will not forget that some day I am coming to you as Phil Quentin and not in the mask of a bandit."
"I shall expect you, robber, to appear before a certain tribunal and there explain, if you can, what led you to commit the crime that has shocked the world," she said, brightly.
"I implore the leniency of the high court," he said, tenderly.
"The court can only put you on probation and exact the promise that you will never steal another girl."
"And the length of probation?"
"For all your natural life," demurely.
"Then I must appeal to a higher court," he said, soberly.
"What?" she cried. "Do you object to the judgment?"
"Not at all," he said, earnestly. "I will merely appeal to the higher court for permission to live forever." Both laughed with the buoyancy that comes from suppressed delight. "It occurs to me, Dorothy," said he, a few minutes later, "that we are a long time in reaching the town Father Bivot told me about. We seem to be in the wilds, and he said there were a number of houses within five miles of Craneycrow. Have we pa.s.sed a single habitation?"
"I have not seen one, but I"m sorry the time seems long," she said.
"I wonder if we have lost the way," he went on, a troubled expression in his eyes. "This certainly isn"t a highway, and he said we would come to one within three miles of the castle. See; it is eleven o"clock, and we have been driving for more than two hours at a pretty fair gait. By the eternal, Dorothy, we may be lost!"
"How delightful!" she cried, her eyes sparkling.
"I don"t believe you care," he exclaimed, in surprise.
"I should have said how frightful," she corrected, contritely.
"This isn"t getting you on a train, by any manner of means," he said. "Could I have misunderstood the directions he gave?" He was really disturbed.
"And the poor horse seems so tired, too," she said, serenely.
"By Jove! Didn"t we cross a stream an hour or so ago?" he cried.
"A horrid, splashy little stream? We crossed it long ago."
"Well, we shouldn"t have crossed it," he said, ruefully. "I should have turned up the hill over the creek road. We"re miles out of the way, Dorothy."
"What shall we do?" she asked, with a brave show of dismay.
"I don"t know. We"re in a deuce of a pickle, don"t you see?" he said.
"I can"t say that I do see," she said. "Can"t we drive back to the creek?"
"We could if I could turn the confounded trap about. But how, in the name of heaven, can I turn on a road that isn"t wide enough for two bicycles to pa.s.s in safety? Steep, unclimable hill on our left, deep ravine on our right."
"And a narrow bit of a road ahead of us," she said. "It looks very much as if the crooked and narrow path is the best this time."
That narrow road seemed to have no end and it never widened. The driving at last became dangerous, and they realized that the tired horse was drawing them up a long, gradual slope. The way became steeper, and the road rough with rocks and ruts. Her composure was rapidly deserting her, and he was the picture of impatience.
"If we should meet anyone else driving, what would happen?" she asked, fearfully.
"We won"t meet anyone," he answered. "n.o.body but a mountain goat would wittingly venture up this road. This poor old nag is almost dead. This is a pretty mess! How do you like the way I"m taking you to the train?"
"Is this another abduction?" she asked, sweetly, and both laughed merrily, in spite of their predicament. His haggard face, still showing the effects of illness, grew more and more troubled, and at last he said they would have to get down from the trap, not only to avoid the danger of tipping over the cliff, but to relieve the horse. In this sorry fashion they plodded along, now far above the forest, and in the cool air of the hilltops.
"There certainly must be a top to this accursed hill," he panted. He was leading the horse by the bit, and she was bravely trudging at his side.
"There is a bend in the road up yonder, Phil," she said.
When they turned the bend in the tortuous mountain road, both drew up sharply, with a gasp of astonishment. For a long time neither spoke, their bewildered minds struggling to comprehend the vast puzzle that confronted them. Even the f.a.gged horse p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and looked ahead with interest. Not three hundred yards beyond the bend stood the ruins of an enormous castle.
"It is Craneycrow!" gasped the man, leaning dizzily against the shaft of the trap. She could only look at him in mute consternation.
It was Craneycrow, beyond all doubt, but what supernatural power had transferred it bodily from the squarrose hill on which it had stood for centuries, to the spot it now occupied, grim and almost grinning? "Is this a dream, Dorothy? Are we really back again?"
"I can"t believe it," she murmured. "We must be deceived by a strange resem--"
"There is Bob himself! Good heavens, this paralyzes me! Hey, Bob!